[obol] Yard Week Ending 06/08 (Oregon City)

[LOUIS C FREDD]

06/02 CASSIN'S VIREO  First spring record here. One previously last August.  Dark above, nice pale lemon yellow on sides, big spectacles.  This was apparently the last of a parade of flycatchers, waxwings, tanagers, etc. I reported for the last week of May.  Except for the waxwings, the rest were on the late side of seasonal occurence bar charts I have been constructing for the yard the past few years.  Much of the migrational activity reported earlier this spring on OBOL bypassed here.  However, I did see more than usual numbers of Western Tanagers and Wilson's Warblers throughout.
 06/02 or so.  BARN SWALLOW A pair finally showed up on a daily basis, at least a month later than usual.  They have some flexibility evidently.  They cut back and forth along the fairway much of the day, about knee-high, dodging past mowers and golf carts for the insects the machines stir up.   06/08 CALIFORNIA QUAIL A pair scurried down our lane mid-morning.  I rarely see these anymore since a housing development destroyed their best local winter cover a few years back. Any Day.  Juvenile EUROPEAN STARLING, up to 200.  I've seen the earliest (last week May) and largest aggregations of these ever this spring.  These appear to roam a lot as their numbers are highly variable from day to day. They spend their days poking holes in the fairway turf, leave us greatly alone considering the potential.  If experience in past years holds up they'll be gone late in the month when the ground hardens.  Each one represents X many fewer craneflies in the autumn, I hope, that's good.  
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